Wind power produced more electricity than gas for the first time in the UK across the first three months of the year.
Analysis by power generation business Drax, based on figures by researchers from Imperial College London, revealed that wind provided 32.4% of the nation’s power over the first quarter.
Gas delivered 31.7% of the UK’s electricity supply, meaning wind power tipped the scale for the first time.
During these three months wind turbines delivered a total of 24 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity.
A terawatt-hour is a unit of energy equal to outputting one trillion watts for one hour and analysts said that the 24 TWh generated through wind power would be enough to charge more than 300 million Tesla Model Ys.
When combined with other renewable sources including solar, green power accounted for 42% of all electricity during the period.
Wind was by far the biggest renewable energy source in the quarter with solar accounting for 2.3% of total electricity generation, biomass producing 5.7% and hydro power 1.5%.
Fossil fuels accounted for a third (33%) with the rest coming from nuclear power stations (12.5%) and imports (12.6%).
The National Grid also confirmed that April saw a record amount of electricity generated through solar farms.
Wind outpacing gas seen as a ‘milestone’ in switch to green energy
Iain Staffell, an energy researcher at Imperial College London and lead author of the academics’ research, said that there were still many hurdles before the UK achieved a grid entirely free of fossil fuels, but that passing this tipping point was a ‘milestone’.
The UK is aiming to produce entirely emission-free electricity by 2035.
The BBC reported, however, that there was a bottleneck of wind and solar projects waiting to go live, largely due to the sheer volume of new volumes.
It estimated that there were more than £200 billion worth of projects in the queue, with figures from the National Grid showing that around 40% of them were facing a wait of a year or more.
The Government has also announced plans to increase the benefits people living in areas that agree to host local onshore wind farms.
The proposals would allow developers to offer improved benefit packages that could include money off their bills.
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